NPC Thoughts

Are Serial Killers born or are they made? I've always wondered which one is the answer. I feel like there is always a case that can be made for both sides. One of the things that we see in a lot of serial killers is that they have been abused, psychologically or physically. You can argue that this is a big factor as to why serial killers are the way they are but then again, there are some serial killers who grow up wanting to commit evil. When I say commit evil I mean people who grow up killing animals. The article shows how the argument that serial killers are born the way they are when it says,"  Ted Bundy, for instance, already exhibited abnormal behavior at a very young age – at the age of 3 he was already interested in knives and in his teenage years he would continually spy on other people’s windows". However, the article counters this when it talks about Ed Kemper. It says,"  His grandmother was also very abusive and at the age of 15 he ended up killing her an

Jim Jones' cult: The Peoples' Temple and their "utopia" Jonestown was shocking and sad. I can't say I blame the people who followed him because, during that period, being integrated with other backgrounds was looked down upon especially in the South. He went against what at the time were societal norms and brought African Americans, Asians, Whites, etc together as equals. Pushing for an integrated society was a very good idea but after that, it just went downhill.  I kind of feel like he preyed on vulnerable people. I think when people are in a position where they feel "lost" they turn to things they believe as a sort of comfort. For a lot of people, it may be religion, and seeing that he was a well-spoken person especially since during his time, the peace movement was a big thing, he used that to his advantage which made his church grow more and more.  As things went on, things got worse and worse. He became a lot more aggressive and even beat his follo

Crazy, not Insane helped bring a lot of insight as to why people are aggressive in general. The thing that caught my attention was how each serial killer in the documentary has had some sort of head trauma. Of course, there is more that goes into making a serial killer. A lot of them grew up in abusive households, they've been molested by people who were supposed to protect them, and overall grew up in a bad environment. These things don't entirely dictate a serial killer but these are recurring things in a lot of serial killers' childhoods. As stated earlier, the thing that caught my attention was head trauma has a lot to do with a person's behavior specifically when they're adults. I've seen this a lot from football players who suffer from CTE. People like Richard Sherman, Aaron Hernandez, Antonio Brown, the list goes on and on but they are people who weren't aggressive coming into the league. They were really nice people but as their careers progressed, t

Reading this article was sad because there are a lot of young people locked away in juvenile detention centers without getting proper help. A lot of the young people being held in juvenile detention centers come from broken homes. Each young person being held in juvenile detention centers have their story. Instead of understanding their issues and making sure they don't go down the wrong path again, the criminal justice system punishes them. The article shows that" . ..Andrus was exposed to gangs, dosed on psychotropic drugs and tossed in solitary confinement more than 77 times, sometimes at his own request". The thing criminal justice punishes those who commit crimes. I don't believe that everybody can be helped but I believe starting at juvenile detention centers would help a lot. I believe that if they gave the youth resources to get out of trouble, adequate support in school and much more, crime committed by youth would decrease gradually over time. 

The death penalty is something that can be useful but also unnecessary. In the documentary, we saw different instances where families lost a loved one to another. It shows us how there are families who want to see the killer get punished by being given the death penalty but there are others who wouldn't be able to live with the guilt of having another person killed by the death penalty. Not only that but this documentary gave us insight into how being a death row executioner can affect people. Some people feel as if they have a lot of power in their hands and feel no remorse when executing prisoners.  Others may not like it and leave having to regret a lot of what they had done later on in life. It's a sad watch because on one hand, you sympathize with many families and their decision not to push for the death penalty and the same goes for those who do want to push for the death penalty.  While watching the documentary, I personally thought that the death penalty was a rightful

I usually believed that all serial killers were the same when thinking about serial killers. I never really thought there were four different categories where serial killers are categorized and put into 4 different categories to explain their motives. The first category the article talks about is visionary killer. They are considered insane or psychotic. They are people who kill because they believe they are being told to do so by a person or an entity. An example of a visionary killer would be David Berkowitz. He thought a demon transmitted orders through his neighbor's dog, instructing him to murder. He would go on to kill 13 people and injure 6 others. The second category the article talks about is mission-oriented killers. Unlike visionary killers, they are not insane or psychotic. They are people who kill to rid society of a specific group of people. They tend to be more organized when they kill. An example of a mission-oriented killer would be Gary Ridgway. His victims were &

Nevin Park, Richmond CA (There is more stuff on the other side like basketball courts but it's all fenced up so I couldn't get a proper picture) Parks are so beneficial for people no matter what age a person is. It's like a big open space for people to have fun, where you can run around and kill time. I grew up around parks being that I played soccer growing up so playing in a nice park was always fun especially when they had a playground. We see how beneficial parks can be as it's shown in the article when it says ," In a major Dutch study Van den Berg, Maas, Verheij, & Groenewegen (2010) showed that respondents with more green space near their homes were less affected by a stressful life event than those with a low green space access, suggesting that green space buffers stress". This is true to some extent because it all depends on the area in which the park is located. I believe this is for people who live near parks in nice neighborhoods. Here in Richm

While reading this article, it gave me a further understanding of how environmental racism has been affecting low-income neighborhoods. This is something we've been talking about in my Race and Resistance class which shows us how low-income neighborhoods tend to have dumpsites nearby, oil refineries, a much more. This is true because, in Richmond, my neighborhood lives close to the Chevron Oil Refiner and a couple more hazardous sites that have affected many Richmond citizens for the longest. According to ClimateCenteral.org ," The people of Richmond live within a ring of five major oil refineries, three chemical companies, eight Superfund sites, dozens of other toxic waste sites, highways, two rail yards, ports and marine terminals where tankers dock". This has proven to cause a lot of asthma in a lot of Richmond residents as 80-90% of residents living in North Richmond, San Pablo, and Atchison Woods District have asthma.  I'm sure there are a lot of low-income neigh

When watching the documentary "Planet of the Humans" we got an insight into how much of a scam renewable energy sources are. The companies that claim they are helping the environment are relying on fossil fuels to produce their products. They are so heavily funded and yet they wasted all of that money on companies that pollute our planet more and more as the days go by.  It's sad how there isn't any hope or way we can stop this situation. It's already bad as it is. Scientists have been warning us since 1958 about how global warming would affect the polar ice caps which would in turn sink a huge portion of the South. States like Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, etc would be submerged underwater sometime in the future.  A thing I found notably interesting was when the documentary showed how politics plays a part in the way we view the current state of the Earth. Conservatives believe that we will eventually find a never-ending supply of oil which would cause us to li